Love Is Blind
by r4ven3
Summary: One shot only, this is a somewhat OOC romp featuring most of the Grid characters from S9. Beth, Tariq, Dimitri and Alec make an appearance, along with Ruth and Harry. Please forgive my self-indulgence.


The Grid - Thursday morning:

Ruth is sitting at her desk, head phones on, pen and paper at the ready, her eyes focused on the images on her monitor. She is translating; a meeting between an asset of Lucas' and another man, who claims to have had contact with someone rather high up in Mossad. Ruth believes the exercise to be a waste of time. She'd much rather be accessing files from the meetings of the members of the inner sanctum of Mossad, but for reasons he has not shared with her, Lucas wants _this_ information, from _this_ meeting. In her peripheral vision Ruth sees movement, and so pauses the footage, and removes her head phones.

"So .. how was it?" Beth stops beside Ruth's desk, but even her whisper can be heard from afar.

"How was what?"

"You know … last night."

Ruth sits back in her chair and looks around to see Dimitri and even Tariq paying close attention. Have they nothing better to be doing? "Fine," she says.

"Just fine?" Ruth nods. "Did you use the flat?"

"Eventually, yes. I went home to sleep."

"Alone?"

"I'm afraid so."

"How was the date?" Dimitri says, far too loudly, from his desk across the way. "What did he do with his dog?"

"What?"

"His dog. You know, since he's blind."

"You had a date with a _blind_ man?" Tariq asks, having sidled over from his own desk, and is inching closer to Ruth. "Wow, that's cool. Can he do sign language?

"He's not deaf," Dimitri snaps.

"I knew that. Can he read Braille? Where did you go? Hopefully not to the movies." Tariq presents his palm, and he and Dimitri share a high five.

"They went to the dogs," Dimitri chips in, chuckling at his own joke, "the blind dogs."

Beth, who is closer, leans across to thump Dimitri in the arm. "It was a blind date, you idiot, not a date with a blind person."

Ruth, who at the best of times rarely enjoys the attention of her colleagues, also knows that the interrogation of her will not be over until she answers their questions, after which they will hopefully lose interest. Dimitri is not known for his long attention span. "We went to an Italian restaurant near where I live."

"What was your date's name?" Tariq asks, clearly intrigued.

"Joe."

"Wow," the young techie exclaims, "you dated a _woman_? That's so .. twenty-first century!"

"How would you know?" Beth exclaims, glaring at Tariq.

"I know lots of things."

"So," says Dimitri, "you've changed teams. Does Harry know?"

"This has nothing to do with Harry, and Joe's name is spelled J-o-e."

Dimitri's and Tariq's faces drop in disappointment. "Joe is a bloke," Dimitri states unnecessarily.

"Yeah," Tariq replies, "bummer!" Tariq brightens. "Is he really not blind, like -"

"No, Tariq," Beth says with increasing irritation, "you do know what a blind date is, don't you?"

"Of course," Tariq replies, "I'm not stupid."

Alec White has just entered the Grid, and he has been ambling towards them. "This looks like fun," he says, leaning his backside against Dimitri's desk, and folding his arms, "can I join in?"

"Ruth went on a blind date last night," rattled Tariq, "except the dude's not blind." Alec throws his head back and laughs. "Have you ever been on a blind date, Alec?"

"Yeah, `fraid so."

"So what happened?"

"She wasn't blind, either, so I married her."

" _Seriously_?" Tariq draws closer to Alec, like he is about to suck out his thoughts. "Then what happened?"

"We fought for around ten years, I took to the drink, and then she left. End of story."

"There you go, Ruth," Dimitri says, grinning, "you have ten years of hell ahead of you."

"I'll not be seeing him again," Ruth says quietly, turning back to her monitor.

"Why not? Was he ugly?"

"No, Tariq, he was quite attractive, and a nice man, but ..."

"Bad breath, right?" Dimitri replies.

"I didn't get that close to him. It's just that … it's complicated." Ruth replaces her head phones, and returns to translating. For her, the discussion is over.

Beth flicks her head to the three men. Her gesture says: _Your fun is over, now_ _leave Ruth alone_. Beth knows exactly why Ruth is not prepared to see this man again, and yes, it _is_ quite complicated; so complicated that she barely understands it, and even doubts that Ruth has a manageable grasp of it herself. Only the evening before, as she was about to walk out the door of their flat, she'd asked Ruth a question.

"Why?" she'd said, figuring Ruth would grasp the full meaning of her question.

"Because I have to do something .. different."

That was all Ruth had given her, but it was enough. Ruth is at a cross roads, and she is in pain, and whose fault is that? Beth returns to her own desk, shaking her head. In her opinion, personal relationships should never be this fraught.

* * *

Ruth has almost finished translating the thirty-four minutes of video feed, much of which she has had to use her lip reading skills to decipher words, since the sound had been intermittently drowned out by the sounds of traffic, or the voices of people walking by. All the same, she is satisfied with her work so far, and she hopes Lucas will be also. Without wanting to, her eyes are drawn to Harry's office, where the man in question is sitting at his desk, staring through the glass at her. He sits up straight, quickly moving his eyes from her, and then back to her, before he flicks his head in a familiar gesture. _He's calling me to his lair_ , she thinks. Ruth knows she should claim to be too busy to talk to him, but she is also a person of high curiosity. She could claim she has another ten minutes of translating, and Lucas is waiting for her to finish, but she knows that's not true. Again she removes her head phones, grabs a pen and an A4 folder in which she keeps several sheets of blank paper, and crosses the floor to Harry's office.

Just in case others are watching, she knocks on his door, but enters before he has a chance to reply. She immediately notices that Harry's attention is being drawn to the Grid floor, so she turns, and through the window she sees Dimitri and Tariq walking from the kitchen, both wearing blindfolds, their arms stretched in front of them, feeling their way. Ruth can't help herself; she smiles, but when she turns back to Harry, he appears anything but happy. "What are those two up to?" he asks. "Don't they know this is a place of work?"

"It's a show," she says, sitting in the chair which faces his own, "and I believe it's for me."

"Do I want to know about this?" Harry's face is grim. He is unhappy, and rightly so, although in their defence, Dimitri and Tariq are on their lunch break.

"It's a joke .. at my expense."

"And you're happy with that?"

"I didn't say I was happy about it. No animals have been harmed, Harry. They're just … de-stressing."

" _De-stressing_? From what? Neither man has raised a sweat for at least a week." Harry's face is becoming flushed, and Ruth thinks he should consider his blood pressure.

"Which is good news. We're in a lull at present, which … after Nightingale … and all that followed, is a relief."

She can usually calm Harry, soothe him so that his blood pressure drops, but apparently not this time. He stands and crosses to the door, and then on to the Grid floor. He moves so quickly that Ruth has to hurry to catch up. The situation has the potential to escalate. "Tariq .. Dimitri .. come here," he calls out. He stands beside Dimitri's desk, his hands on his hips, feet apart, his demeanour hostile. Dimitri and Tariq remove their blindfolds, hesitating, taking in the sight of their section head, clearly displeased. Behind him, Ruth appears torn between fainting and running away. Ruth then sees Beth hurrying after Dimitri and Tariq, a tea towel in her hands.

Harry takes in the scene before him, but before he can speak, Beth steps forward and speaks on behalf of the two men. "It was my idea, Harry," she begins.

"It was mine," Dimitri interrupts.

"Actually it was mine," says Tariq quietly. "It was my idea."

"So which one of you is Spartacus?"

Beth, Tariq and Dimitri appear bewildered, while from behind Harry, Ruth smiles. Harry hasn't completely lost his sense of humour, even though he is set to give everyone a bollocking.

"Harry," says Beth, stepping closer to Harry, "I think I can explain, but I have to see you in private .. in your office."

Harry backs down, and marches ahead of Beth into his office. "This way," he says.

"How's she going to explain this?" Tariq asks.

"By telling the truth," Dimitri replies.

Ruth begins to feel anxious. She is afraid that her story will no longer be a private joke between colleagues.

"Harry'll go ballistic," Tariq says, pocketing the tea towel which had been his blindfold.

"He won't go ballistic, Tariq," Ruth says quietly, "he'll just become very quiet."

And she is right. Beth spends almost half an hour with Harry, and when she leaves his office, she heads directly to her desk, avoiding eye contact with Ruth. At intervals during the afternoon, Ruth looks towards Harry's office, hoping to gain his attention, but it is clear he is avoiding her. Ruth is relieved when six o'clock comes around and she is able to leave. She is angry, but most of all she is angry with herself. She has been flippant, and careless with the heart of a man who feels everything so deeply. How will she ever be able to explain away her decision to turn from him, only to date someone she'd never met? _It was just a date,_ she thinks, as she heads down in the lift. _I didn't sleep with him._

* * *

Ruth's and Beth's flat - Thursday evening:

Ruth is surprised to find three bottles of white wine chilling in the fridge, accompanied by a note from Beth. _This is for you_ , Beth had written. _View_ _it as an apology. I'll not be home tonight. Knock yourself out._ Ruth doesn't know why her flatmate feels the need to apologise, or why she has decided to stay out for the night, but she has an idea. Ever since Beth had visited Harry in his office he had been cold towards her, avoiding her eyes, and Ruth believes she knows why.

She is stretched out on the sofa, dressed in warm track pants, thick socks and her favourite around-home jumper, the one which reaches almost to her knees. The TV is tuned to _The X Factor_ , but she has the sound muted, because she can't stand the comments of the judges. A half bottle of wine, along with her glass, sits on the coffee table. When the doorbell rings she considers ignoring it. It can't be Beth, because she has a key, and they almost never have visitors. As always, curiosity wins, and so she heaves herself from the sofa and heads to the front door.

He is leaning against the post at one corner of the porch, and he looks so tired, so sad, and so completely drained that she can't deny him entry into her home. "You'd best come in," she says, standing aside to allow him into the flat. "Would you like anything? Tea? Coffee? I have wine."

"I think a wine might hit the spot," he says, removing his coat and jacket, and then his tie, lifting his eyebrows to Ruth in a question about where he should put them.

"I'll take them," she says, and she drapes them over a spare armchair before heading to the kitchen, where she opens a cupboard door in search of a clean wine glass. As she turns from the cupboard, she is confronted by Harry's presence in the cramped kitchen with her. His close proximity confuses her, and she drops her eyes, hoping he's not expecting her to be scintillating and entertaining company. "I don't really entertain," she says, embarrassed, holding out the glass to Harry. "It's Beth who is the hostess with the mostest."

Ruth looks up to see that Harry's face has changed; there is a softening around his mouth, and a kindness in his sad eyes. "It's only a glass, Ruth. I'm sure I can pour myself a wine." His voice is deep and soft, and like so many times in their shared past, she feels herself drawn to him, moth to a flame. All she wants now is to sink against him, and for him to encircle her in his arms. She cannot allow that, at least not until after they have talked.

"We should go .." and Ruth points to the doorway into the living room. Harry stands aside, allowing her to lead the way. True to his word, Harry pours wine for himself, and then tops up Ruth's glass. She sits at one end of the sofa, leaving plenty of room for him to sit beside her, but he remains standing, watching her over the top of his glass. "There's food in the fridge if you're hungry," she says quickly, wishing he'd sit and share with her what he came to say.

"I'm fine, thanks, Ruth. I ate at work."

Ruth doubts that. Like her, Harry often forgets to eat, and this worries her. She wants to remind him that whisky does not belong to one of the essential food groups. She is worried about his blood sugar. She is worried about whether he is eating enough protein, or whether he knows that at his age he needs added Omega 3's, but she can't say any of this to him without giving herself away. "You must be here for a reason," is all she says.

Thankfully, while she has been worrying about his general health, Harry has grasped the back of the other armchair, pulling it towards the coffee table, so that he sits directly opposite her. For a very long moment he watches her without speaking. She drops her eyes, and she hears him sigh. "I suppose you know that Beth spoke to me today." Ruth nods, briefly looking up. "She told me what triggered the odd behaviour of Tariq and Dimitri." Again, Ruth looks up, but this time she is worried that Harry now knows something about her which she'd rather he didn't. She has always felt the need to hold something back, even from him. "She told me about the … blind date." Ruth nods, but can't look at him. "She also told me that you'd been reluctant to go." He hesitates, and then continues speaking. "My question is, why?"

"I should say that this is none of your business, Harry."

"I know, but I'm a man of curiosity, which is something we have in common."

For the first time since he'd arrived, Ruth smiles at him. How very like him to dance around his real question, which is, _why did you go out with a total stranger, when you turned me down, the man who loves you_? Again Ruth drops her eyes, and reaches out to pick up her wine glass. She is sure she has drunk enough wine for one night, but she takes a generous gulp before placing the glass back on the table. "There are some things," she says quietly, "which defy explanation."

"Will you be seeing him again?"

When Ruth shakes her head, she is sure she sees a glint of victory in his eyes, and as annoyed as she is by that – by his assumption that it is his right to express an opinion about her private life – she is also glad that he still cares enough to be here, asking such questions, when only eleven weeks earlier she had turned down his bizarre marriage proposal. Ruth understands that this means she must still care for him.

"Ruth," he says, and in her peripheral vision she sees him leaning forward in an attempt to gain eye contact. She looks up to see him watching her. "Why is it you went out with a man you didn't know, and yet ..." He can't finish what he began saying. Perhaps she is the one who needs to speak on his behalf.

"I didn't know how to … make things right between us, so when my friend, Anne, suggested I go out with someone she knew, I thought … why not?"

"That was hardly the solution to what has been wrong between us."

She looks up at him, and he is sitting forward, watching her. "Oh, I don't know," she replies, "you're here now, aren't you?"

Harry's smiles a wide smile. "Can I sit next to you?"

Ruth feels her face relax, and she pats the sofa beside her. Harry moves around the coffee table to sit close to her, but without touching. He reaches across to grab his glass, and he lifts it towards her as if performing a toast. His undivided attention is embarrassing to her, but she enjoys it anyway. He places his glass on the table and then reaches across to grasp her hand, and Ruth allows this small intimacy. After a while she speaks. "What made you propose to me .. in the way you did?" Seeing the shock in his eyes, she drops his hand and moves away slightly.

"I .." he begins carefully, "it sounded good in my head, but .."

"It was the reference to needing an extra person at our funerals that put me off."

She feels him turning to face her, and so she mirrors his action. "What I meant to say was, can we not keep one another company, perhaps for the rest of our lives."

Ruth lifts her eyes and smiles up at him. "Now _that_ – minus the marriage proposal – would have hit the spot."

"That was all I really wanted for us, Ruth," he says quietly. "The suggestion of marriage was perhaps -"

"Pre-emptive."

Had she not been watching him closely she would have missed the small nod of his head, an acknowledgement that while he still wants _something_ for them, the idea of marriage has been sidelined for now. Ruth wants Harry to seal the deal. She lifts her hand to his face and rests her palm against his jaw. She runs her thumb across his skin, enjoying the prickliness of his unshaven cheek. His mouth calls to her, so she moves her hand so that her thumb caresses his bottom lip, plump and sensuous. Harry purses his lips and presses them against the pad of her thumb. Ruth views that action as a green light. She turns his face towards her and places her own lips on his. Harry needs no encouragement. He leans into her as he returns the kiss.

Afterwards, Ruth is unable to say how they came to be almost horizontal on her sofa, their feet entangled, lips locked, while his hands wandered beneath her jumper and over her bare skin, his thumb lightly stroking one nipple through her bra, while her hands pulled his shirt from his trousers, and explored the skin of his back and sides. Apart from some murmurs of approval and satisfaction, nothing more is said. Ruth is thinking that Harry is a very good kisser, while Harry is barely thinking at all. He is enjoying every moment of their rather delicious snog, just in case Ruth suddenly calls time.

They both hear the noise at the same time - the sound of the front door opening, and then quickly closing. They pull away from one another and turn to see Beth hurrying past the open door between the living room and the hallway, her hand up to block her view of the room. "I'm not here," she says loudly, "just carry on."

And then she is gone, climbing the stairs to her room.

"Wasn't she supposed to be out for the night?" Harry asks, sitting up, his shirt askew, his hair sticking up at the back where Ruth's fingers have run through it over and over.

"Something must have happened."

"Do you know his name?"

"Andy something. He's a day trader, whatever that is. I guess things didn't turn out as planned."

"For either of us," Harry says quietly.

"Only our evening turned out quite well." She smiles into his eyes, and they both know that the interruption by Beth is a godsend. It is best they not go too far too soon. They are Ruth and Harry and they never go too far too soon. They are cautious and measured, although in that moment they separately decide that caution can be overrated.

With the sound of Beth's bedroom door closing, Harry begins to tuck in his shirt. Then he looks at Ruth, who is watching everything he does, having already straightened her clothes. "Ruth," he says carefully, "I'd like it were we to have dinner together .. tomorrow night."

She takes so long to answer that he is afraid he may have spoken too soon, perhaps making another pre-emptive strike. She is watching him closely, searching for any sign that he does not really mean what he has said. "I'd like that," she says at last.

"I should go home," he says quietly. "I don't know about you, but I need my beauty sleep."

Ruth nods. If they are attempting to build bridges between them, then they have made a very good start. He gathers his coat, jacket and tie, and Ruth sees him to the door, where they come together once more in a tender, lingering kiss. Neither wish to be leaving the other, but they must.

* * *

The Grid – Friday morning:

Beth has just settled at her desk and logged on to her system when she hears a deep voice from behind her, eerily close to her ear. "Where's Evershed?"

"Dimitri, don't do that."

"Don't do what?"

"Creep up on me and then shout in my ear."

"Sorry. A little delicate this morning, are we?"

"I had a bit of a crap night."

Just then, they are joined by Tariq. "You'd never guess what," he says.

"No .. what?" Dimitri and Beth say in unison.

"Harry smiled at me and said thank you, and it's not even lunchtime."

Dimitri and Beth look at one another, each frowning before they shake their heads, and then turn to Tariq, waiting for an explanation.

"We-ell .. it's just gone 8 am, and Harry never smiles before lunchtime. And Ruth's not even here."

"Yes, she is," Beth says, nodding towards their analyst colleague as she crosses the floor to her desk.

"And Harry is smiling again .. at _her_ ," Tariq observes, like he's just discovered the origins of the Universe.

"How's the blind guy?" Dimitri calls to her, and Ruth shakes her head and smiles.

"There is no blind guy," Tariq explains. "Her blind date wasn't blind."

Ruth is out of earshot, so she doesn't hear what is said next. "She had another date last night, at the flat," Beth says conspiratorially. "I saw his car outside."

"So it can't be the blind guy," Dimitri says with a grin, "because blind guys can't drive."

"There's no reason blind guys can't drive," replies Tariq, "they just can't see where they're going."

"It was a Range Rover," Beth says, realising too late that she has spoken the words aloud.

"Harry has a Range Rover," says Dimitri quietly.

"It can't be Harry," replies Beth, just as quietly.

"Why not?" Tariq asks, "He was smiling at her this morning, and Harry never smiles until after he's had lunch."

"Sometimes not even then," adds Dimitri.

Suddenly, Beth realises what she has done. She has dropped Harry and Ruth in it, and she had done it almost without realising. She really needs to cut back on her drinking. "She was with someone in the living room," she says lamely.

"Did you see them?"

"I didn't look. She deserves some privacy."

"So, Beth," says Dimitri, "you had the opportunity and you stuffed it up."

"I guess so, yes."

"You're no fun at all," Dimitri says, standing and heading to the kitchen for coffee.

Tariq is still hovering close to Beth's desk, watching Harry as he smiles while he's on the phone. "What if it _is_ Harry?" he says, frowning.

Beth shakes her head. "That's impossible," she says, wishing Tariq would find another obsession.

"Why?"

"Is just is, that's all." Beth waits, but Tariq is still there, watching Harry. "Haven't you work to be doing, Tariq?"

"Loads."

"Then?"

"Right. I'm off," and as quickly as he'd arrived, he leaves.

Beth sighs heavily. She's never been good at keeping secrets, but this time she must. There was a blind date, and then – according to Dimitri and Tariq – there was a blind man, and now there is Harry. Perhaps her blind date had somehow catapulted Ruth into Harry's arms. She, Beth, is not about to spoil things for her flat mate. She will respect Ruth's privacy and keep her mouth shut. She glances across at Ruth to see she is talking on the phone, and smiling, just as Harry is still talking on the phone, allowing the occasional smile to soften his features.

If Beth knows anything at all it's that: _1 blind date + 1 Range Rover + 1 empty flat = Ruth + Harry (together)_ , and that is all anyone needs to know.

* * *

 _ **A/N : Re the reference to Spartacus, I have assumed that readers may be familiar with it, but if not, I suggest you google `I am Spartacus'.**_


End file.
